Laird on NECA Turtles

Once in a blue moon I will directly jack a post from the technodrome.com forums because I think it is interesting enough to put on my blog. This is one such post. This was actually already stolen from the wizarduniverse site, so I'll just spam you the text. It is an interesting read:

Indie comics legend Peter Laird who, along with Kevin Eastman, created the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a group of ass-kicking mutants hanging in the sewers of Manhattan. ToyFare got a chance to sit down with Laird to talk about the upcoming Ninja Turtles figures coming from NECA. Laird will be signing NYCC exclusive box sets—the ones you've probably seen on this lovely site—tomorrow. The set includes all of the accessories that will come with the individually packaged figures.

Have you seen the NECA Ninja Turtles figures?

They're awesome, I love them—they're beautiful. I'm very happy with them. We got a glimpse of the black and white variants at Toy Fair and they looked great. Yeah I think they just nailed it, which is funny because the first piece of art they sent us was horrible. It was just so bad, but I give them credit because we told them that and ever since then they've done a great job.

What kind input did you have on the designs? Did you send them sketches or did they send them to you for approval?

Basically what we did was we sent them copies of the original comics and told them that this is what we want, try and make them how we used to draw them 25 years ago. They did send us some concept sketches with poses and we suggested a few things like shortening the neck, but once they understood what we wanted they did a fantastic job. When they started sculting there were only three or four minor things we asked them to change, like the long necks, but it was very minor. It was something I wished that I wished Playmates would have done. They came close with those cold cast figures, which had pretty nice sculpts and were close to the original look, but not quite there.

Did they approach you about the line or did you guys go to them?

For as long as we've dealt with Playmates, they've been a great partner, but they've been very tight about anyone else doing any kind of figural toy, even when Burger King wanted them for kid's meals. It so happens that 4 Kids, our licensing company, was approached by NECA and then went to Playmates at a time when the guy at Playmates who was in charge of overseeing that part of the business was on vacation, so his lieutenant said sure, as long as they only sold in specialty shops. Apprently when the guy got back he wasn't too happy, but by then the deal was done.

Do you know what other figures they're doing in the line?

I'm almost positive they're doing Casey Jones, I've seen the April sculpt and they're doing Mousers along with April. They did a great job sculpting her, she looks just like the comic. I hope they keep going. I really hope they do a Fugitoid with chrome metal.